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(Español) Graves afectaciones a niñxs y adolescentes por violencia del crimen organizado en Chiapas

Sorry, this entry is only available in Mexican Spanish. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

  • El 2023 fue uno de los años más violentos para las infancias y adolescencias en el estado. Se estiman más de 100 mil niñas, niños y adolescentes afectados por las disputas entre grupos criminales.
  • Desplazamiento, reclutamiento forzado, desapariciones y homicidios ponen en riesgo su vida e integridad y vulneran sus derechos humanos.

Desde el 2021, Chiapas ha sido el centro de una pugna cruenta por parte de grupos criminales que se disputan este territorio clave para el tráfico de armas, drogas y trata de personas. En esta disputa, las y los pobladores de municipios en la Sierra Mariscal han visto sus comunidades asediadas por una ola de violencia sin igual en la región. Cobro de piso, ataques armados, quema de vehículos, sitio de poblados, cortes de agua y luz. Así como amenazas, extorsiones, reclutamiento forzado, desaparición de quienes se niegan a colaborar, asesinatos violentos y desplazamiento forzado como resultado de la violencia.

En este contexto, la vida cotidiana se ha trastocado con situaciones como bloqueos que impiden salir o llegar a otras comunidades, cierre de negocios, suspensión de clases, pérdida de cultivos que no han podido cosecharse, escasez de alimentos, encarecimiento de víveres, entre otros.

El 2023 fue uno de los años más violentos para las infancias y adolescencias en el estado. Sin embargo, no existen datos oficiales que permitan entender la magnitud de la violencia a la que se enfrenta la población. A lo largo de todo el año, en diferentes municipios de Chiapas, se dieron situaciones que afectaron la vida de miles de niñas, niños y adolescentes en el estado.

En el mes de mayo, comunidades como Lajerío y Candelaria en Frontera Comalapa tuvieron que desplazarse debido a la violencia de grupos criminales. Desde entonces, diferentes comunidades a lo largo de la región Sierra Mariscal se han sumado a los territorios asfixiados por la lucha entre grupos que se disputan el control de la frontera.

Para el mes de agosto, Motozintla y Chicomuselo fueron también víctimas de bloqueos, comunidades sitiadas y con ello, escasez y encarecimiento de alimentos. En septiembre, profesores de la zona escolar 025 publicaron un comunicado en el que declaraban la suspensión de clases en dicha región debido a que no existían las condiciones para garantizar la seguridad. Dicha sección abarca los municipios de Amatenango de la Frontera, Bejucal, Bella Vista, Chicomuselo, El Porvenir, Frontera Comalapa, La Grandeza, Honduras de la Sierra, Las Margaritas, Mazapa, Motozintla y Siltepec. Si consideramos el total de población de 3 a 17 años en dichos municipios y estimamos, al menos un 70% de asistencia a la escuela de acuerdo a datos oficiales, estaríamos hablando de 108,560 niñas, niños y adolescentes afectados por la suspensión de clases debido a la violencia en el periodo de septiembre-diciembre 2023[1].

Por otro lado, la violencia también se manifestó en territorios fronterizos en la región Selva. Desde hace casi un año, comunidades de Ocosingo, denuncian el aumento de grupos criminales que realizan actividades como tala clandestina, tráfico de armas y trata de personas[2]. En las comunidades de Lacanjá Chansayab, Nueva Palestina, Santo Domingo y San Javier, estimamos que 9,098 niñas, niños y adolescentes están siendo afectados por la violencia imperante en dichos territorios.

Durante el mes de noviembre, pobladores del municipio de Maravilla Tenejapa sufrieron situaciones de quema de casas, detonaciones de armas de fuego y desplazamiento forzado debido a su temor por la violencia[3]. En dicho episodio, 13 comunidades con una población estimada de 2,883 niñas, niños y adolescentes fueron afectadas.

El 2023 cerró para muchas comunidades en un contexto de guerra. Comunidades en los municipios de Bella Vista y La Grandeza denunciaron el sitio de sus poblados por grupos criminales, quienes realizaron también cortes de agua y luz para presionarlos a unirse a sus filas. El año nuevo entró en la Sierra Mariscal con enfrentamientos, siendo particularmente violentos en el municipio de Amatenango de la Frontera.

En lo que va de enero de 2024, la situación no ha mejorado. A las disputas entre grupos criminales, se suman agresiones del ejército contra pobladores bajo la acusación de que abren el paso al crimen organizado. De este modo, poblados en los municipios de El Porvenir, Siltepec y Socoltenango se han visto amenazados por parte de los soldados y atacados con gases lacrimógenos. En dicho contexto, las familias han ido abandonando sus casas. No se tienen cifras exactas de la magnitud de la población afectada. Algunas personas han migrado a Estados Unidos o a estados de la Península y otras más buscan refugio con familiares en Tzimol y Comitán. El Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas estima que son 2,300 personas desplazadas por la narcoviolencia desde el 15 de enero en los municipios de Chicomuselo, Socoltenango y la Concordia.[4] Protección Civil señala 1,884 personas atendidas en albergues de Tzimol, Socoltenango, Comitán y La Trinitaria.[5]

(Continuar leyendo…)

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The Kurdish Center for Studies | Rojava Azadi

Erdoğan’s Air Force Lays Waste to Rojava Amidst Global Silence

Source: The Kurdish Center for Studies – Dr. Hawzhin Azeez – 17 Jan 2024


A Kurdish woman mourns at the funeral of victims killed during the Turkish bombing and invasion of Serê Kaniyê in 2019. Many now worry the process will be repeated elsewhere in Rojava following the current bombardment.

Erdoğan’s regime in Turkey has continued its reign of terror on the Kurdish region of Rojava, which is governed by the DAANES (Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria). Ankara’s litany of weekly war crimes for the past several months involves ceaseless bombardments, airstrikes, and drone attacks across a wide range of civilian sites. To understand the reasoning behind their aerial terror, one only needs to look at the recent history and neo-Ottomanist foreign policy objectives of Turkey when it comes to the Kurdish areas of northern Syria.

For instance, the Turkish military has already annexed large swaths of the Kurdish territories in the region, including utilizing their jihadist mercenary allies to occupy Afrin in 2018 and Serê Kaniyê and Girê Spi in 2019. Both invasions ethnically cleansed the regions of Kurds by more than 80% resulting in close to a million people being internally displaced.

Back in October 2023, when the bombardments commenced at unprecedented levels, refugee camps of internally displaced people were also attacked, causing mass terror and uncertainty. But this also coincides with Turkey’s previous playbook, where they sow fear amongst Kurdish civilians in the hope that they will flee the region. Since October, Turkey has commenced a comprehensive round of repeated bombardments targeting essential infrastructure such as water, gas, and electricity stations. The objective is to displace civilians, cause a mass exodus, and create conditions that make life unbearable in the region.

In the past 72 hours, a number of villages and civilian locations, including barns and food depots, have been targeted by Turkish airstrikes. As a result, journalists, activists, and civilians across the region shared horrifying images of injured civilians, destroyed warehouses, and repeated attacks on non-military locations, including the illegal double-tap policy of re-striking a site that had been previously attacked as emergency crews scrambled to put out the fires and treat any wounded.

In the village of Karbatli, in the Darbasiyah district, the family home of a civilian named Khaled Heso was bombed, resulting in his children Rojan and Jan, along with his wife Ahlam being injured. Meanwhile, the Kurdish journalist Hoshang Hassan released exclusive footage of the Turkish bombardments against electric stations in Amuda. Showing that Turkey is most interested in striking the necessities of life: food, water, electricity, and shelter (homes).

The Rojava Information Center (RIC) released an exclusive video detailing the Turkish bombardments since October, highlighting the repeat targeting of civilians and their land, homes, and properties during the bombardments. During the Christmas period, another round of massive bombardments occurred, in which Turkish airstrikes hit a number of civilian infrastructures, including factories, medical centers, industrial warehouses, and more. In the most recent cascade of unprovoked strikes, 11 civilians were killed, with dozens more injured.

Turkey also specifically targeted crucial gas and electrical facilities around Suwaydiyah. This electrical station, according to the RIC produces 47% of the Jazire canton’s total electrical supply. More importantly, it is the only station providing electricity to emergency lines for essential medical services and the area’s only local gas bottling plant. Displaying the sinister nature of the strikes, Turkey wants the Kurdish population thirsty, hungry, cold, and in the dark, but without fuel to flee. Then, following the Turkish drone strikes, the ambulances and hospitals lack fuel to treat any of the wounded.

Farhad Shami, the media representative of the SDF released a press statement on behalf of the SDF General Command, in which he stated that: “Over the past two days, the Turkish occupation has targeted, using warplanes and UAV’s key energy and electricity facilities, as well as grain storage warehouses and silos and firefighting crews. These aggressions have extended to the homes of civilians, their farms, and the sources of their daily sustenance, impacting major roads and city outskirts and causing extensive destruction. Consequently, these attacks have disrupted the delivery of essential services, including power, electricity, water, and other necessities, affecting hundreds of thousands of people.”

Shami went on to state that:

“These direct attacks and barbaric terrorist aggression clearly and explicitly prove the hostility of the Turkish occupation state to all forms of life in the region, they constitute blatant and deliberate war crimes aimed at instilling fear, and inflicting suffering on their daily existence.”

Likewise, the media representative for the YPG, Siyamend Ali published a number of videos on his media page, which included images of the Turkish warplanes bombing journalists and media crews in the city of Kobanê, as well as recordings of Turkish drones targeting the French Lafarge Cement Company in the Chelabiya district east of Kobanê. The video shows a second “double tap” strike as firefighting crews attempt to douse the fires—a common tactic of Turkey at this point, which is against international law.

Meanwhile, another local journalist, Jamal Bali, stated that after a full day of bombardments by the Turkish state on service facilities across the region, “most of the region’s residents are now without water and electricity” during a harsh and cold winter.

For their part, the Kongra Star Women’s Movement released a report that highlighted the bombardments over the last 48 hours across the Amuda district. In Kobanê alone, wheat warehouses, orchards, fire crews, electricity transfer stations, and livestock barns have been targeted by ongoing strikes. Meanwhile, five electrical service stations were also bombed again around Kobanê.


A political cartoon by Dijwar Ibrahim, depicting the US and EU as an ostrich with its head buried in the sand as Erdoğan destroys Rojava.

Human rights advocates have weighed in on the ongoing Turkish bombardments as well. Nadine Maenza, an American advocate for international religious freedom and a former chair at USCIRF, has questioned why the US government allows Turkey to continue to engage in war crimes against the Kurds, when such attacks benefit Iran, Assad, and ISIS while, according to her, running counter to US goals for peace and stability in the region. Maenza went on to condemn the Turkish assault on Rojava and its explicit targeting of civilian infrastructure and she has called for the international community to stand firm against ongoing Turkish war crimes against the Kurds.

Additionally, scholars such as Gerald Walker, an expert in global diplomacy and international relations, have argued that Turkey’s “attacks seem to be part of a strategy to displace the local population, furthering a policy of Turkification and extending Turkish control over this Syrian territory.” However, as Walker points out, while Turkey is attempting to gain further Syrian territory, these territories are explicitly Kurdish-dominated areas of the country. Turkey’s Syria policy is driven solely by its exterminationst aspirations towards the Kurds. This is despite the fact that the PYD and the SDF have not fired a single bullet or rocket towards the Turkish border. Rather it seems the repeated military losses that Turkey’s allied jihadists in Syria suffered at the hands of the Kurds continue to prompt Ankara’s resentful and vengeful anti-Kurdish policies across the Kurdish regions in northern Syria and Iraq (Western and Southern Kurdistan, respectively).

Other activists called for the urgent implementation of a No-Fly Zone in the region or for the US-led coalition to provide the Kurds with air defense systems and the necessary technology to protect themselves against the ceaseless Turkish bombardments.

In light of the total absence of international outcry about Turkey’s unhindered and unrestrained violence towards Rojava, it appears unlikely that such war crimes will cease anytime soon. As the world reels from the war in Gaza and South Africa’s ICJ case is played out across TV screens, the same international media outraged by Israel’s bombing of Palestinians, remains silent and apathetic as Turkey bombs Kurds and attempts to raze Rojava to the ground.

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Acción Palestina Chiapas

(Español) [SCLC – 24 enero] Conversatorio “Alto al fuego en Gaza”

Sorry, this entry is only available in Mexican Spanish. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

¿Cómo es la vida diaria en Gaza ahora? ¿Cuáles son las condiciones en los pocos hospitales que quedan? ¿Qué sienten los trabajadores de salud allí? ¿Qué podemos hacer como sociedad civil?

El Dr. Aldo Rodríguez nos acompaña este miércoles 24 a las 5pm en La Enseñanza, San Cristóbal, para compartir sus experiencias en Gaza a finales del 2023

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Democracy Now!

The Undressed Wounds of Gaza

By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

Em Berry recently published a poem, “Because of Us,” that reads,

This morning I learned
The English word gauze
(finely woven medical cloth)
Comes from the Arabic word […] Ghazza
Because Gazans have been skilled weavers for centuries

I wondered then

how many of our wounds
have been dressed
because of them

and how many of theirs
have been left open
because of us

Berry’s poem is painfully timely, as the Israeli military, after weeks of bombing civilian targets (including schools, hospitals and ambulances) has expanded its ground invasion, attacking hospitals directly with tanks and troops.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 26 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are non-functional, denied electricity, fuel, supplies and damaged by Israel’s assault. Inoperable incubators, respirators, and dialysis machines have left patients to die. Staff trapped at Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, dug a mass grave to bury over 180 dead patients.

Israel has also killed an estimated 200 medical workers. Among them, Dr. Hammam Alloh, a 36-year-old internist and nephrologist at Al-Shifa, killed along with his father, father-in-law and brother-in-law on Saturday, November 11th, when Israel shelled his home. He is survived by his wife and two young children.

Dr. Alloh spoke on the Democracy Now! news hour on October 31st, two weeks before his death:

“The few trucks that were allowed in with aid to Gazan people is almost nothing compared to what we need,” Dr. Alloh said. “Water, gloves and gauze, this is not what we are looking for. We are looking for devices, medications… for providing real healthcare for people in need.”

Days earlier, Dr. Alloh made an excruciating decision, ordering his staff to stop resuscitating an older patient, as the hospital lacked a working ventilator for her, so, even if successfully resuscitated, the patient would still die. He instructed the doctors and nurses to triage care, saving those with a chance of survival.

Despite Israel’s constant bombardment and approaching ground invasion, Dr. Alloh refused to leave:

“If I go, who treats my patients? We are not animals. We have the right to receive proper health care. So we can’t just leave,” he said. “You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients?…This is not the reason why I became a doctor.”

That brave decision cost Dr. Hammam Alloh his life. A family member wrote Democracy Now!, saying his body remains buried under rubble. Al-Shifa, meanwhile, has become a war zone.

Dr. Alloh with his children

“If I should choose today between hell and Al-Shifa, I would choose hell,” Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian physician with decades of experience in Gaza, said on Democracy Now! He tried repeatedly to get into Gaza in recent weeks, to get to Al-Shifa, without success. “Twenty out of the 23 ICU patients had died. Seventeen other patients died because of lack of supplies, oxygen and water. And three, if not five, of the 38 premature newborns have died because of this slow suffocation that the Israeli occupation army is exposing all the hospitals to…I’m out of words to describe this systematic, man-made slaughtering of patients in civilian hospitals.”

While words may fail Dr. Mads Gilbert, those of the late Dr. Hammam Alloh on Democracy Now! offer a posthumous call to action:

“We need this war to end, because we are real humans. We are not animals. We have the right to live freely…we are being exterminated. We are being mass[ive]ly eradicated. You pretend to care for humanitarian and human rights, which is not what we are living now. To prove us wrong, please do something.”

At least 1.6 million Palestinians have been displaced by Israel’s war on Gaza, out of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million. Earlier this week, Israel dropped leaflets on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, warning residents to flee – many for the second time, after fleeing northern Gaza.

The United Nations Security Council passed its first resolution Wednesday, after four previous, failed attempts, calling for extended humanitarian pauses in Gaza, with the United States abstaining.

The late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, as a child, survived the 1948 Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” when 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and 15,000 were killed during Israel’s founding. Darwish lived much of his life in exile and was a critic of Hamas. He wrote in his poem, “To A Young Poet,”

“A poem in a difficult time
is beautiful flowers in a cemetery.”

As the WHO warns Gaza’s hospitals are becoming cemeteries, it’s time to heed the poets and the doctors, stop the killing, end the occupation, and dress the open wounds of war.

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Radio Zapatista

Interview with Fuad Abu Saif in Palestine about Gaza

Listen to the interview:
(Descarga aquí)  

For over a month now, Israel has been bombing Gaza through air, sea, and land, in retaliation for the attack by Hamas on October 7, aimed at lifting the deadly blockade imposed on Gaza for 17 years, which has led to thousands of deaths, most of whom are children. Around 1,400 people died in that attack, although recent reports from Israel indicate that there is a strong possibility that many, if not most of the dead were killed by indiscriminate Israeli fire that day.

Israel’s offensive against Gaza has killed close to 11,000 people so far, at least 4,500 of whom are children. In violation of international law and all human rights conventions, Israel continues to massacre the civilian population indiscriminately, attacking hospitals, schools, ambulances, shelters, mosques, homes, buildings, and refugee camps, as well as infrastructure. Since October 7, Israel has hit at least 12,000 targets with 25,000 tons of explosives, according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor—the equivalent to two nuclear bombs. Massive demonstrations all around the world have condemned what is evidently Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocidal project, not only committed through direct massacres, but also employing hunger and deprivation, cutting off access to food and clean water for a population of 2.5 million Palestinians.

From the West Bank, we spoke with Fuad Abu Saif, General Director of the Union of Agricultural Work Communities (UAWC), who explained the situation.


Foto: El Mundo

Thank you for being with us, Fuad. We would like to know what the situation is like in Gaza right now, but before we do that, we would like to know what life was like in Gaza for the last 16 or 17 years, since the borders were closed by Israel in 2006.

The story of Gaza, the West Bank and all of Palestine started not just on October 7 or even 16 or 17 years ago; it started 75 years ago when Israel occupied Palestine in 1948. In 2006, there was a national election in Palestine and Hamas won. Immediately, Israel imposed a siege in all of Gaza, which has made the life of people there very difficult. Gaza is a very small area: 665 km2 surrounded on all sides by Israel and the sea on the other side, and about 2.5 million people living there, all of them under siege. That means that there is no way to go in or out without passing through the Israeli border. They forbid about 100 different materials from entering Gaza, which means that all the fundamental and basic needs for life are prohibited from entering Gaza. And of course, there is no airport or other connection with the outside world, except through Egypt, which is also in agreement with Israel and also blocked that border.

We work closely with Gaza because our office is responsible for being in daily touch with people there. Thousands of people have died because there is not enough care in the hospitals, no materials, no fuel, no electricity. Even before October 7, electricity was only available for four hours a day. The water is contaminated, there is no clean water in Gaza, and no one can go in or out of Gaza for 16 or 17 years. So life was impossible…

Some people have described Gaza as the largest open-air prison in the world…

It’s not just an open-air prison. Israel waged five wars before this one during these 16 years, killed thousands of Palestinians and arrested many others. Thousands of Palestinians were killed because they entered their land in the area near the border between Israel and Gaza… everyone entering after 6 pm, they shoot them. Hundreds of farmers lost their life because they were late in their farm and the Israelis attacked them. Protesters who tried to protest and condemn this situation in the area were killed or injured because they organized a kind of march near the Israeli border—this has happened since 2014. The wars mean that military operations can happen at any moment, and it has happened five times without any reason to justify it. In the past 16 years, Israel initiated these military operations without having any attacks from Gaza.

What is it like now on the ground after October 7?

Since October 7, Israel started this genocide war in Gaza. The number of victims is increasing in a crazy way, until last night it was almost 11,000 Palestinians killed in one month, more than 55,000 injured by the Israeli air strikes against civilians, homes, and infrastructure in Gaza. The problem is that more than 69% are children and women. The way they are killing cannot be described. They bomb houses full of civilians and children. As you may know, the majority of people in Gaza are young and children, more than 60%. So all houses are full of children, and without alerting anyone, they bomb them, the houses, the buildings and everywhere in Gaza. Like I said, it is a very small area. Life cannot be described. There’s no safe place in all of Gaza, and in addition Israel, beside the siege imposed for 17 years, they imposed a different kind of siege—they totally cut off electricity on October 10. They cut off food and are using starvation in this war against civilian Palestinians. They cut roads, cut water, there is no food, no water, no safe place…


Foto: Mahmud Hams, AFP

How are people surviving with this lack of food, water, and mobility?

As a humanitarian organization, we launched from the beginning of this war a program to support people to have access to food. No food is available from the outside, we’re relying on the limited food inside Gaza. Gaza is an agricultural area. There are two different places: the buffer zone, which is a huge land area next to the Israeli border, where Israel isolated that area from the people and farmers, so no one can have access to that area. There is another small area, which is the land inside Gaza itself, where there is what we call the home gardens, where people plant around their homes. This is the only source of food they have. Plus there are some big suppliers in Gaza who had already stored food and materials before the war. We are in contact with them and they have almost run out in the last three or four days. They are managing with the very little food, and are scheduling between the families: this for tomorrow, this for after tomorrow. And as one of them told me: “Look, for us, we have no problem, but it’s difficult for me to describe that to my children, that we don’t have food and we have only one meal, which might sometimes be only bread or rice, and we explain this to the children and they start crying, they don’t understand what that means, but this is the only way that we are managing this starvation.” Water is the same… as an example, in Rafah, which is in the south of Gaza, where almost 900,000 Palestinians were forced to move from the north, plus the close to 1 million already living in that area. They have one well working manually because there is no electricity, and sometimes you have to wait four or five hours to fill your container with 30 to 40 liters, and if you are lucky you have water; if not, you come back the next day. They try not to use the bathroom, for example, this is an agreement, only one time per day. The stories coming from them are very hard, especially for children. Of course, there is no milk, and the bread sometimes is so dry that they have to mix it with water so children can eat it.

They allowed some trucks to enter Gaza, 150 trucks from the beginning. Some of the trucks were only filled to 30-40% of their capacity, and most of the materials and food were expired. Others bring things that the people don’t need, such as clothing.


Foto: Said Khatib, AFP

A few hours ago, the EZLN published a communiqué. Let me read you a part of it:

The murdered Palestinian children are not collateral victims, they are and always have been Netanhayu’s main objective. This war is not about eliminating Hamas. It is about killing the future. Hamas will only be the collateral victim. Israel’s government has lost the media battle because it turns out that genocide, even if disguised as revenge, does not have as many followers as it believed. It is now capable of the most unimaginable cruelty.  The only ones who may perhaps end the massacre are… the people of Israel.

This brings me to a couple of questions. The first one has to do with the true motivations for this barbarism, which is backed by the United States, England, and other European countries. What are the economic and geopolitical interests at play here, and what are Israel’s and its allies’ true intentions?

There are some facts that have become clear for everyone. I don’t know how the world is accepting this, listening and not taking any real action in this genocide against civilians and in particular against children. Israel is not just Netanyahu. All Israeli leaders and even more the “civilians” declared from the beginning that no civilians are to survive in Gaza and that we have to kill them all. A few days ago, 100 doctors signed a petition demanding from the Israeli government to burn Gaza totally, including the children. I think that with this strong support from the United States and other Western governments, it is clear that they want to change the face of the whole region and restructure it so it is more beneficial for Israel. From the first moment, they moved rapidly to visit Israel and express their solidarity, and they agreed with the Israeli project to displace the Palestinians from Gaza and push them to Rafah as the first step, and the next step, from Rafah to Sinai. Until yesterday, Israelis have killed 175 Palestinians in the West Bank, where there is no Hamas, no military operations here. Which means that they are also preparing for another displacement to Jordan, and Israel is now putting that on the table and started speaking of this Israeli project, where Gaza will be pushed to the Sinai and the West Bank to Jordan. It is a horrifying project, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and genocide in Gaza, with the full support of European governments and the US, and of course Palestinians will not allow this to happen. What is happening in Gaza and the way people are resisting is an example, but it’s risky for everyone. There is no room now for international law, and they encourage Israel to be above international law. They are attacking Syria again on a regular basis, Lebanon… they do whatever they want with the support of Europe and the US…


Foto: Mahmud Hams, AFP

And of course, this is happening in the context of a crisis of the United States as a world power, as Russia, China, and BRICS acquires more power and threatens Western hegemony.

The US is dealing with Israel as an important military base here. There is gas in Gaza, huge quantities discovered in 1996 but that became clearer in 2000. So they are not just using Israel as a military base. This explains why the next day Biden visited Israel, with a statement full of lies, and it’s clear that he’s lying, there is no evidence for his statements. They know that the Palestinians don’t have real power, we have no tanks, no weapons… we have natural resources. It is also about having access to the sea through Gaza, we’ve heard of this plan for decades, and the only way to do that is to displace the Gazan people.

In this context, what is the role of the other Arab countries?

Some of them are too weak, and others are supporting Israel. I mean the governments. Between Gaza and Egypt there are no Israelis, but the border is heavily closed. Since 2006, the Egyptian government closed the only gate for Gazans to have access to the world. So yes, they are contributing in a practical way. Egypt is the biggest Arab country and has the power to change everything. But they do the opposite exactly. The other Arab countries, the United States is scaring them, they are bringing all the US power and troops in the sea here, to alert them that if you move or support, there will be a mess in your country. They are very weak, fragmented, and the US has brought them to their side, and they sometimes even condemn Palestine and support Israel.

What do you see as possible outcomes? President Biden has said that there is no way this is going to stop, and Netanyahu denies all possibility of a ceasefire… where is this going?

It is difficult to talk about the future among those criminals and this kind of way of thinking from Biden and others. I am shocked that everyone is seeing people being killed in this way after almost 35, 40 days from the war, and they are justifying it saying that they keep attacking because they  won’t give any chance to Hamas to rebuild; but that is not true at all. They don’t want a ceasefire because they want to keep the pressure on the people to keep pushing them to the south. They are surrounding Gaza City right now and they keep pushing and killing and attacking the people, and the people are starting to move to the south again. This is what they did in 1948, when Israel attacked more than 500 Palestinian villages and kept attacking them until they evacuated and displaced these villages to Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, etc., after which they became refugees. They are doing the same now again. It is a genocidal thinking clearly, everyone is watching as if it was a movie. This should be stopped; not just stopped, they should be held accountable for their crime. I’m a bit scared that, with this green light from the US, they will continue killing, and things will be increasingly difficult in Gaza… and everything is possible, frankly speaking. They don’t care about the number of victims. I’m not optimistic, I’m scared, we are all scared that this will continue and will become a normal part of the agenda, and after a few weeks no one will be talking about this.

Yet there is an unprecedented outrage and support around the world, with very large demonstrations, including by Jewish communities in many countries who are saying no, not in our name, we will not accept this genocide. Do you see any hope in this world movement in defense of the Palestinian cause?

As Palestinians, we see two sources of hope among all this darkness. One of them is the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza. In the West Bank, it is also very hard, they imposed closure, siege, killing, shooting… The steadfastness of the Palestinian people is one hope and it’s a strong one.

The other hope is, yes, this kind of huge demonstrations all around the world. If it continues or grows, it might… for example, in France, and even in the US, we start hearing a very small change in words, not in a real change in their position, where they are talking about a ceasefire, because there was no talk of a ceasefire at all one or two weeks ago. In France, what Macron said in Jerusalem is that there should be an alliance against Hamas. And after these huge demonstrations, they started demanding a ceasefire in a very open and public way. That’s the only hope we have, no other hopes. There are no other options to see an end.


Foto: Hollie Adams, Reuters

Since you are in the West Bank, can you tell us what the situation is like there?

It is very difficult and risky. We cannot move from our cities or villages, they cut everything. They put gates in all the Palestinian cities and villages. You cannot go out or in without passing through the gates and checkpoints. If you get closer they might shoot you, and many Palestinians have been killed that way. According to the Oslo agreements, they divided the West Bank in three areas. Area C, is composed of 63% of the West Bank, the majority of land and resources are there. From October 7, they have displaced people from that area, which is huge and where there is hope to build the Palestinian state in the future. Settlers have raided Palestinian communities in Area C on a daily basis; they attack houses, burn houses, burn farms, steal Palestinian assets, uproot trees. We’re in the middle of the olive season, which is like carnival for the Palestinian people, and no one can harvest their olives because the settlers either steal the olives or uproot the trees or they shoot at Palestinian farmers who try to have access to their land. Last week for example, near Nablus, they killed some Palestinians picking their olives.

This month they killed 175 Palestinians; yesterday alone they killed 16 Palestinians in the Jenin camp. We have in 5,500 Palestinians in prison, arrested in the last 20 years; but in this month, 2,500 Palestinians have been arrested.

All checkpoints are closed. Even the food here, we have more spaces and food suppliers, but if it continues like this, there will be a shortage of food. They might turn off water and electricity at any moment if they decide so.

Is there anything else you would like to tell our audience?

I think the only message that all Palestinians have is that we need to get our freedom. We are tired of being under occupation for 75 years. We need our children to have hope and a future similar to all the children around the world. We need to be safe in our land, in our homes, in our camps. We don’t want to see more Palestinian refugee camps, we need Palestinian refugees to come back, we need to have an independent country and a future, we need sovereignty over our resources, similar to the Israelis, similar to everyone. We are no different from Israelis, we are as human as others. We don’t want to have people killed. We need to put an end to this situation, to this cycle of war, because this is the sixth time in the last 15 years in Gaza. So we need to stop this forever. We hate seeing Western countries’ hypocrisy and the US supporting and participating in killing Palestinians directly. This should end. We all have to respect human issues and international law, it cannot be applied to the Palestinians, the victims, while allowing Israel to do whatever they want. We are fighters for dignity, we are fighters for freedom. We are not fighting to kill or to hate. So this is what I would like the whole world to be aware of, and to stand with the Palestinians to achieve that. These are human values, not just for the Palestinians. Fighting occupation here or elsewhere is a fundamental human value all around the world. History is full of stories like this but they all finished, and we need it also to finish here and give Palestinians their freedom.


Foto: El Mundo

 

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Noticias de Abajo ML

No

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Rompiendo Fronteras

  • PALESTINA: Un mes de genocidio en Palestina por el Estado de Israel y más de 70 años de ocupación militar. Más de 10 mil víctimas mortales, de las cuales más de 4 mil son infancias.
  • PANAMÁ: Tercera de semana de movilizaciones masivas en el contexto del paro contra la minería. Exigen cancelación de contrato minero.

Desde el ombligo del monstruo::.

  • CDMX: Otomies en resistencia y rebeldía resisten ante intento de desalojo en su lucha por la vivienda digna y contra el olvido. Bloquean avenida por más de 20 días y doblegan al gobierno. Tercer aniversario de la TomaINPI, ahora la Casa de los Pueblos.
  • GUERRERO: Costa de Guerrero es destruida por huracán Otis categoría 5. Ante ineficiencia del gobierno y militarización, el pueblo se organiza. Más de 800 cientos mil personas.
  • CHIAPAS: Comunicados zapatistas anuncian cambios en la estructura de sus autonomías y llaman a actividad en zona rebelde por los 30 años del levantamiento.
  • OAXACA: Convocan a Faena por los presos de Eloxochitlan de Flores Magón el 18, 19 y 20 de noviembre.
  • JALISCO: ¿A dónde van los desaparecidos? Ante una grave crisis de desapariciones forzadas en el país. Madres buscadoras de Jalisco encuentran un crematorio clandestino, el tercero en el estado.

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Medios Libres

(Español) Tercera Marcha Unitaria por Palestina – CDMX

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Este domingo 5 de noviembre, más de 15 mil personas se manifestaron en solidaridad con el pueblo palestino ante el despiadado ataque del Estado de Israel contra Gaza, que hasta ahora ha cobrado la vida de más de 10 mil palestinos, entre los cuales se encuentran más de 4 mil niños y 2 mil 600 mujeres, y por lo menos 25 mil 400 heridos, entre ellos más de 6 mil niños. Del lado de Israel, 1 mil 400 israelitas han muerto y 5 mil 600 han resultado heridos.

El ataque de Israel, por mar, aire y tierra, ha hecho caso omiso de la ley internacional, bombardeando hospitales, escuelas de la ONU y campos de refugiados, asesinando indiscriminadamente a la población civil. La OMS ha documentado 82 ataques a hospitales desde el 7 de octubre, efectivamente desactivando el 46% de las instalaciones de salud (muchos de ellos por falta de energía y combustible).

Desde el inicio del conflicto, por lo menos 36 periodistas han sido asesinados.

La falta de alimentos, agua y combustible está provocando una emergencia humanitaria para el pueblo de Gaza que, como muchos han denunciado, está muy cerca de provocar un genocidio. Craig Mokhiber, un alto funcionario de las Naciones Unidas, renunció como protesta por la incapacidad de la ONU de frenar lo que él llama “un genocidio de manual”.

Mientras tanto, un documento filtrado del Ministerio de Inteligencia de Israel, escrito menos de una semana después del ataque de Hamas del 7 de octubre, propone realizar una limpieza étnica de la franja de Gaza, desplazando a toda la población al desierto de Egipto.

Alrededor del mundo, cientos de miles de personas se han manifestado contra la barbarie en curso cometida por Israel. Sin embargo, los bombardeos continúan y las grandes potencias occidentales, en particular los Estados Unidos, continúan apoyando a Israel con armamento.

Enseguida las imágenes de la Tercera Marcha Unitaria que se realizó este domingo en la Ciudad de México, cortesía de los Medios Libres:

(Continuar leyendo…)

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Colectivos y Organizaciones "No Más Guerras"

(Español) [CDMX 5 Nov] 3a Marcha por Palestina

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Más de 100 organizaciones sociales convocan a la
Tercera Marcha Unitaria por Palestina en la Ciudad de México.

¡Alto inmediato a la guerra genocida de los gobiernos terroristas
de los EE.UU. e “ISRAEL” contra el pueblo palestino!

Domingo 05 de Noviembre
16:00 hrs

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Marcos Arana, Observatorio del Derecho a la Salud

Latin America and the Palestinian Genocide

By: Marcos Arana, Observatorio del Derecho a la Salud

Condemning Israel for its crimes is not an act of anti-Semitism. With its unconscionable cruelty and insensitivity to the lives of children and other civilian population, Israel betrays the fundamentals of Judaism in which there is one commandment above all others, and which speaks of the importance and power of empathy: “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger: you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Shemot 22:20).

With its disregard for the lives of the Palestinians, the State of Israel is severely undermining the moral authority and symbolic value that the world conferred on the Jews at the end of World War II for their sacrifice and resilience; and whose testimony should have been for all humanity, a perennial reminder that the atrocities they suffered was a crime that should never be repeated. However, instead of honoring the history of the millions of European Jews who were exterminated, the Israeli government distorts the narrative to justify the dispossession and slaughter of Palestinians, as well as to manipulate the blame that persists among the leaders of countries that were passive, silent or collaborators in the face of Nazi barbarism. Israel blackmails to ensure support and impunity for its criminal excesses and violations of
international law, as well as to neutralize the ability of the United Nations to stop them.

The United States and the European Union guarantee Israel’s impunity to perpetrate the same kind of excesses that these very same countries committed during the darkest moments of their colonial histories. Their complicity prevents the ceasefire and endorses the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. The position of these governments will fill them with shame and blame in the future for having been collaborators in one of the greatest mass crimes of recent history. One day they will have to be held accountable for repressing and ignoring the clamor of their citizens demanding a halt to Israel’s aggression. In this way, the governments of these countries have not only allowed, but helped the State of Israel to misuse the name and history of a victimized people to become the executioner.

The military escalation carried out by Israel against Gaza is much more than an act of excessive punishment; it constitutes a premeditated and long-planned action to take advantage of the Hamas attack as a pretext to implement a final solution to the Palestinian problem; similar to the “Endlösung der Judenfrage” or final solution that the genocidal Nazis executed against Jews and Gypsies. At this moment, the Israeli government is implementing a final solution against the Palestinians; the scenario has changed, it is no longer the Warsaw Ghetto or the Ukrainian Galizia; now it is Gaza. It is no longer the swastika, but the blue star on the Israeli flag. The solution is to annihilate the Palestinians from the cradle and the womb of their mothers and throw the survivors into the Egyptian desert. This is the plan, meticulously carried out by Israel. Biden, Macron, Sunak, Scholz and other European leaders endorse it, and form the circle that protects the lynching.

To carry out the “Final Solution,” the Germans coordinated and perpetrated the murder of the Jews of Europe. They murdered the Jews by implementing policies that led to starvation, disease, random acts of terrorism, mass shootings and death by gassing. The difference is that in the Palestinian Holocaust, the sacrificial fire comes from American weapons.

Fortunately, Israel does not represent all Jews. Tens of thousands of Jews are opposing the ethnocide, marching and raising their voices to demand that Israel stop the massacre and to say “Not in our name!”. Jews for Peace, who demand Israel to stop the massacre of Palestinians, remind us of the dignified difference between the Germans who joined in breaking windows and denouncing Jews and those who hid and protected the persecuted at the beginning of World War II.

It is not acceptable that the millions of people around the world who oppose the genocide and dispossession of the Palestinian people are powerless to stop the genocide. We can demand that Latin American governments withdraw their ambassadors to Israel and break diplomatic relations. The Colombian president Petro already warned about this possibility. While finishin writing this text, the Bolivian government announced its decision to cut diplomatic ties with Israel in an energic statement denouncing Israel genocidal military operation against palestinians. Hopefully other countries in the region will make the same desion.

We need to claim diplomatic isolation and economic boycott against Israel. We urge that Netanyahu and Yoav Galant, the defense minister of Israel to be formally charged as war criminals and arrest warrants against them are issued. They should not be allowed to travel, that they be isolated, singled out, charged, that they not go unpunished.

And along with the other war-mongers, who have launched a war of extermination against the Palestinian people, they are also guilty of distracting the whole world from the urgent task of fighting a global climate cataclysm. Their war machines are accelerating their intensity at breakneck speed. Their war machines are  also murdering all of us.

Octubre 29,2023.
observatoriosalud@gmail.com

Cover photo: EPA

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Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés

Of sowings and reapings

October, 2023

Almost 15 years ago, in our words, the nightmare was forwarned. It was during a Semillero and it was through the voice of the deceased SupMarcos that we spoke. Here it goes:

Of sowings and reapings
(January 2009)

Maybe, what I am about to say has nothing to do with the main theme of this roundtable, or maybe it has.

Two days ago, the same day in which our word spoke of violence, the ineffable Condoleezza Rice, US government official, declared that what was going on in Gaza was the fault of the Palestinians, due to their violent nature.

The subterranean rivers that run through the world are able to change their geography, but they sing the same song.

And the river we now listen to sings of war and grief.

Not far from here, in a place called Gaza, in Palestine, in the Middle East, just next door, a heavily armed and trained army, from the Israeli government, continues its advance of death and destruction.

The steps it has followed so far are those of a classic military war of conquest: first a massive and intense bombardment to destroy “neuralgic” military posts (so they are called by military manuals) and to “soften up” resistance fortifications; then an iron grip on information: everything that is heard and seen “in the outside world”, that is to say, outside of the theatre of operations must be selected according to military criteria; now intense artillery fire over enemy infantry to protect the advance of troops to their new positions: after that an encirclement and siege to weaken the enemy garrison; then an assault to conquer the position by annihilating  the enemy; finally, the “cleansing” of the probable “nests of resistance”.

The military manual of modern warfare, with some variations or additions, is being followed step by step by invading military forces.

We don’t know much about this, and it is certain that there are specialists on the so called “conflict in the Middle East”, but from this corner, we have something to say:

According to the photos from news agencies, the “neuralgic” military posts destroyed by the Airforce of the Israeli government are houses, huts, civil buildings.

We have not seen any bunkers, barracks, military airports or cannon batteries among what has been destroyed. Then, we think, excuse our ignorance, that either the aircraft gunners have bad aim or in Gaza there are no such “neuralgic” military posts.

We don’t have the honor of having visited Palestine, but we suppose that in those houses, huts and buildings used to live people, men, women, children and elderlies, and not soldiers.

We have not seen resistance fortifications either, only debris.

What we have seen, is the so far futile effort to cordon off information and several governments of the world wavering between playing the fool or applauding the invasion, and a UN, already useless way back, publishing lukewarm press releases.

But wait. It now occurs to us that perhaps, for the Israeli government, these men, women, children and elderly people are enemy soldiers and, as such, the huts, houses and buildings where they live in are barracks that need to be destroyed.

And the enemy garrison that they want to weaken with the encirclement and siege of Gaza is none other than the Palestinian population living there. And that the assault will seek to annihilate that population. And that any man, woman, child or elderly person who manages to escape, by hiding from the predictably bloody assault, will then be «hunted down» so that the cleansing can be completed, and the military chief in command of the operation can report to his superiors «we have completed the mission.»

Excuse our ignorance again, perhaps what we are saying is, in fact, beside the point. And that instead of repudiating and condemning the crime in progress, as indigenous people and as warriors that we are, we should be discussing and taking a position on the discussion about  whether it’s  «Zionism» or «anti-Semitism», or that it was the Hamas bombs that started it.

Perhaps our thoughts are very simple, and we lack the nuances and the always very necessary marginal notes in the analysis, but, for us Zapatistas, in Gaza there is a professional army assassinating a defenseless population.

Who from below and to the left can remain silent?

-*-

Is it useful to say something? Do our screams stop any bombs? Is our word saving the life of a  Palestinian child?

We think that it is useful, maybe we will not stop a bomb nor will our word become an armored shield that prevents that 5.56 mm or 9 mm caliber bullet, with the letters «IMI» («Israeli Military Industry») engraved on the base of the cartridge, from reaching the chest of a girl or a boy, but maybe our word will manage to join with others in Mexico and the world and maybe first it will become a murmur, then a loud voice, and then a cry that will be heard in Gaza.

We don’t know about you, but we Zapatistas of the EZLN know how important it is, in the midst of destruction and death, to hear a few words of encouragement.

I don’t know how to explain this, but it turns out that words from afar may not be enough to stop a bomb, but they are as if a crack opened in the black room of death for a small light to slip through.

Otherwise, what will happen will happen. The Israeli government will declare that it has dealt a severe blow to terrorism, it will hide the magnitude of the massacre from its people, the big producers of weapons will have gotten an economic break to face the crisis and «world public opinion,» that malleable entity, always in tune with the situation, will turn to look the other way.

But not only. It will also happen that the Palestinian people will resist and survive and continue fighting, and continue to have sympathy for their cause from those below.

And perhaps a boy or girl from Gaza will survive too. Perhaps they will grow and, with them, anger, indignation, rage. Perhaps they will become soldiers or partisans for one of the groups fighting in Palestine. Maybe he or she will face combat against Israel. Maybe he or she does it by firing a rifle. Maybe by blowing himself up with a belt of dynamite sticks around his waist.

And then, up there, someone will write about the violent nature of the Palestinians and make statements condemning that kind of violence and there will be another debate about whether Zionism or anti-Semitism.

And then no one will ask who sowed what was reaped.

On behalf of the men, women, children and elderly of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, 4rth of January 2009.

-*-

Those who were children then, almost 15 years ago, and who survived, well…

There are those who were responsible for sowing what is now being reaped, and there are those who, with impunity, repeat the sowing.

Those who just a few months ago justified and defended Putin’s Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, arguing its «right to defend itself from a potential threat», must now be juggling (or betting on forgetfulness) to invalidate that argument in relation of Israel.  And vice versa.

Today, in Palestine and Israel -and all over the world- there are children and young people learning what terrorisms teach: that there are no limits, no rules, no laws, no shame.

And no responsibilities.

-*-

Neither Hamas nor Netanyahu. The people of Israel will prevail. The people of Palestine will prevail. They only need to give themselves a chance and work hard at it.

Meanwhile, each war will continue to be only the prelude to the next, more ferocious, more destructive, more inhumane.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
Mexico, October 2023.

 

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